Sports Medicine

Dear Colleagues,

It is now commonly agreed that exercise is an efficient strategy for preventing a wide variety of pathological conditions such as osteoporosis, sarcopenia and diabetes, as well as cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. Furthermore, confirming the powerful beneficial effect of sport on human health, exercise is often indicated as an effective non-pharmacological therapeutic strategy to counteract the health impact and progression of many chronic and/or degenerative diseases. The personalisation of training programmes to the individual’s needs could be the key to optimising the beneficial effects of exercise both in healthy patients and in patients with poor health, facilitating the management of chronic and degenerative diseases. In this context, sports medicine represents a fundamental link between practical exercise and basic science, as it aims to provide a scientific assessment of the effects of sport on health. However, although the effects of exercise are well known and extensively documented, the underlying molecular mechanisms are often elusive, and their complete understanding has yet to be achieved. A better understanding of the physiological adaptations to exercise is crucial for the development of personalised training programmes aimed at maximising the preventive and/or therapeutic role of sport.

Therefore, this Topic aims to bring together the latest evidence in the field of sports medicine to i) deepen our knowledge of biological/molecular adaptations to exercise and ii) understand how a training programme tailored to the individual’s needs can improve sports performance.

Thank you the assistance and support from Dr. Ida Cariati and Dr. Roberto Bonanni.

Prof. Dr. Virginia Tancredi
Topic Editors